History’s Most Endearing Christmas Editorial: Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

Washington, D.C. – Another year is nearly gone, and we, most of us, cannot say that it is ending much better than it started. At home and abroad, uncertain reigns. We may not worry that each day might be our last, but we cannot be sure the good times are not all behind us.

The unending stream of drivel percolating through social media into the national conversation drags us down. We focus on the worst of things, not the best. We dither and bicker, each of us consumed with the fear that others have evil designs on our prosperity, our liberty, and our culture.

Has America become a nation of “Karens” and “Kens,” complaining, hectoring, and wrestling the last remaining bits of joy from everyday life? Are we destined to be mindless drones, easily replaceable by machines powered by artificial intelligence? Should we embrace the future or fear it? And, now that we think about it, hasn't it always been this way, as far back as anyone can remember? Is there room left in a world full of terror and hate and self-righteousness for a bit of whimsy and for the magic that was the hallmark of childhood days?

I certainly hope so. As proof there may be, let me offer as evidence the letter written to the editor of a prominent New York newspaper in 1897 by Virginia O'Hanlon:

DEAR EDITOR,

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it's so.' Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

Signed,

Virginia O'Hanlon

115 West Ninety-Fifth Street

NYC.

Would such a letter see the light of day in today's 24-hour news cycle? I certainly hope it would. The response penned and published by The Sun's Francis Church is legendary, not just because of the way he used an unsigned editorial to address the loss of innocence we must all confront someday, one way or another but because of the hope for our common future that emanates from his words:

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! How dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your Papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

For good reason, it may be the all-time, most reprinted news copy. We can all find take hope in those words first inked onto newsprint more than a century ago. The paper and its author may be all but forgotten yet his sentiment lives – or should – in the minds and motivations of those who still honor family and faith and freedom. Our belief in these essentials may not always burn brightly; sometimes it might dim to the faintest ember, but it always remains, alive, alight, and waiting for the moment when, in love and glory, it may be set our hearts ablaze again with the good news.

Merry Christmas.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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